Ocean And Coast

Image: Beach in Santa Monica, CA by Johnny Chau / Unsplash

Nearly 75 percent of California’s population lives in coastal counties and along the State’s iconic 1,100 miles of mainland coastline and the San Francisco Bay’s additional 500-mile shoreline. The ocean and coast contributed $41.9 billion to the state’s GDP, provided $19.8 billion in wages and salaries, and supplied 515,465 jobs in 2014. These figures demonstrate how much the people and economy of California rely on the coastline and the ocean. The short- and long-term risks from climate change, such as sea level rise, coastal erosion and beach loss, and ocean acidification will continue to affect a vast number of people and industries. California is one of the world leaders in both addressing climate change and protecting our coastal and ocean habitats and resources. Because of the ever-growing value of California’s coastal areas and our dependence on the coast and ocean for recreation, food, and critical infrastructure such as ports, airports, and power plants, it is important to assess how climate change will impact our ocean and coasts and how to best anticipate, plan, and prepare for these changing ocean conditions.

Sea-Level Rise

Sea-level rise is an immediate and real threat to lives, livelihoods, transportation, economies, and the environment in California. The vast majority of California’s population lives in coastal counties and will directly experience the effects of sea-level rise on their homes, roads, public services, and infrastructure. More frequent and chronic flooding and erosion are inevitable and inland populations are not immune from sea-level rise. Many of the facilities and much of the infrastructure that support California’s ocean economy, as well as the State’s many miles of public beaches, lie within a few feet of the present high tide line and therefore are at risk from future sea-level rise and coastal storm events as a result of a changing climate.

Ocean Acidification

Ocean acidity has increased by 30 percent and is expected to double over pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, as the ocean absorbs one-third of the carbon dioxide generated by human activities. Extensive field studies conducted worldwide already show significant impacts on fisheries and marine ecosystems from ocean acidification, which will worsen in the future. Continued scientific research is critical to advance understanding of the causes, extent and impacts of ocean acidification. Of equal importance is the development and implementation of actions to help reduce the causes of ocean acidification and protect coastal communities and the marine ecosystems from the impacts of an acidifying ocean.

Warming Ocean Temperatures

In addition to contributing to sea level rise, increasing ocean temperatures also has implications for ocean processes and marine ecosystems, including coastal upwelling, ocean productivity, and species distributions and abundances. This can affect the health of fisheries, the occurrence of harmful algal blooms and disease in marine organisms, and the spread of marine invasive species, and thus impact the ocean resources upon which California’s population depend. Therefore, understanding changing ocean temperatures and their effects, along with the effects of other changing ocean conditions, is needed in order for California to plan, prepare, and manage for these potential impacts.

Integration with Assembly Bill 2516 (AB2516)

Passed in 2014, AB2516 (Gordon) called for the California Natural Resources Agency, in collaboration with the Ocean Protection Council (OPC), to conduct biannual surveys of sea-level rise planning information to catalog California’s efforts to prepare for rising seas. To improve accessibility and usefulness of these resources to support sea-level rise adaptation and resilience, OPC has partnered with OPR to host the AB2516 resources in the Adaptation Clearinghouse. Resources collected as part of this survey include studies, vulnerability assessments, and local coastal programs, among others. Resources gathered through future surveys, as required by AB182 (Berman), will also be included in the Clearinghouse.

The Nature Conservancy. 2016

Sea level rise

Communication or educational material

The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) leads the development of Coastal Resilience, an approach and online decision support tool to help address the devastating effects of climate change and natural disasters, which it started in 2007. The Monterey … Bay region is part of this global TNC network. TNC is working with a suite of partners to find multi-benefit adaptation solutions. TNC has done analysis exploring adaptation approaches for the highway that maximize the use and persistence of natural infrastructure in the face of climate change. Using cost benefit analysis methods for this region TNC finds that in almost all cases, the least economically beneficial adaptation approach involves shoreline armoring.

University of Southern California Sea Grant Program. 2017

FloodingSea level rise

This website provides a summary of a sea level rise planning workshop held in the City of Carpinteria in 2015. At the workshop experts presented on sea level rise models and tools, conducting vulnerability assessments, adaptive management … planning, and legal challenges and opportunities. This website provides access to all the materials presented at the event.

Santa Barbara County. 2017

FloodingSea level rise

AssessmentCommunication or educational material

This website provides summary information on Santa Barbara County's multi-year effort to evaluated the impacts of sea level rise. The site includes links to vulnerability assessments, public presentations and background on the project. Ultimately … the goal for the project is use these assessments to promote local policies that mitigate the impacts of coastal hazards and sea level rise.

Climate Central. 2016

FloodingSea level rise

Communication or educational material

This summary for Monterey County comes from Climate Central’s Surging Seas risk analysis. The summary report is a brief guide that integrates key findings, methods, interpretation and links into one narrative. The report provides an initial … estimate of assets and people exposed to future flood events. This summary can be a stand-alone document or could be used in future county planning.

Climate Central. 2016

FloodingSea level rise

Communication or educational material

This summary for San Luis Obispo County comes from Climate Central’s Surging Seas risk analysis. The summary report is a brief guide that integrates key findings, methods, interpretation and links into one narrative. The report provides … an initial estimate of assets and people exposed to future flood events. This summary can be a stand-alone document or could be used in future county planning.

Climate Central. 2016

FloodingSea level rise

Communication or educational material

This summary for Santa Barbara County comes from Climate Central’s Surging Seas risk analysis. The summary report is a brief guide that integrates key findings, methods, interpretation and links into one narrative. The report provides an … initial estimate of assets and people exposed to future flood events. This summary can be a stand-alone document or could be used in future county planning.

Climate Central. 2016

FloodingSea level rise

Communication or educational material

This summary for Santa Cruz County comes from Climate Central’s Surging Seas risk analysis. The summary report is a brief guide that integrates key findings, methods, interpretation and links into one narrative. The report provides an … initial estimate of assets and people exposed to future flood events. This summary can be a stand-alone document or could be used in future county planning.

Monterey County. 2012

FloodingSea level rise

Plan or strategy

In 2012 Monterey County amended the Del Monte Forest segment of its Local Coastal Program (LCP) directly through the Land Use Plan. The plan requires that new development be both sited and designed to avoid future impacts from sea level … rise. It also establishes the policy that shoreline protection should be a last resort and relocation should be a priority approach for existing development.

California Natural Resources Agency. 2018

Sea level rise

Project or Example

California state agencies collaborated to compile each of these examples, associated with Safeguarding California's 2018 update, to show how California is preparing for and adjusting to various extreme events brought on by climate change. … Each of these examples highlights unique strategies, funded by the state, to combat and adapt to the effects of climate change. The examples are tagged with icons from the Safeguarding California Report, classifying stories by sector. This example highlights a highway realignment to protect the route from severe coastal erosion, which is exacerbated by the effects of climate change.

The Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation. 2014

FloodingSea level rise

Assessment

Monterey Bay Sea Level Rise and Vulnerability Assessment - Technical Methods Report was prepared as part of an ongoing effort to help local communities in their required planning processes such as Local Coastal Programs (LCP), and General … Plans. ESA PWA specifically prepared the report for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation. The present study improved the methods from the Pacific Institute Study and applied them to the Monterey Bay study area with higher resolution local data and review by local experts. The report acts as a compendium to spatial data generated for a cross county effort to understand sea level rise in Monterey Bay. This report provides detailed documentation of the spatial analysis used to map erosion and flood hazards under future sea level rise scenarios. This report complements the metadata for actual geospatial information system (GIS) layers.